Brett Howden

This Season So Far

The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

6 goals and 7 assists in 54 games — 13 points — at 13:04 a night. Plus-5, 53 shots at 11.3 per cent, 55 penalty minutes.

46.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five across 656 minutes, the 22nd percentile, with his ice at 22-18 against an expectation of 23.72-27.47 — nine fewer goals allowed than the chances called for, which is the whole of the plus-5 and belongs to the goaltenders.

He started 41.2 per cent of his shifts in the attacking zone, the 15th percentile: 146 attacking draws against 208 defensive ones. Hard fourth-line minutes, and a 22nd-percentile chance share out of them.

The Finesse Game

53 shots at a median of 19 feet, with 57 per cent of his attempts from inside twenty and 8 per cent from beyond forty.

Inside twenty feet: 25 shots on goal and three goals — 12.00 per cent, below the league forward rate of 17.71. From twenty to forty: 17 shots and three goals, 17.65 per cent. Beyond forty: five shots and none.

Forty-seven shots on goal in fifty-four games is a very low volume, and there is nothing in it to read.

83 tracked attempts, 43 of them wrist shots and 19 tip-ins — a 22.9 per cent share, one of the highest in this chapter. 85.4 mph at the 13th percentile.

31 goals in 279 career games at 11.8 per cent. The finishing rate is fine and the volume never comes. A first-round pick who takes one shot a game is not going to score.

The Physical Game

6-2 and 201 pounds, with 55 penalty minutes in 54 games and 120 in 279 career games — a rate that jumped sharply when he arrived here.

Top speed 22.3 mph at the 50th percentile, 1.1 bursts above twenty a game at the 61st, 2.14 miles a game at the 22nd. Ordinary in every direction.

He forechecks hard and finishes his checks, and the 55 penalty minutes in a fourth-line role say he does it late as often as on time.

He goes to the net and tips pucks, which the 22.9 per cent tip-in share records, and it is the most distinctive thing in the file.

He is not a punishing forward for his size and the physical game is willing rather than dominant.

The Intangibles

Twenty-seventh overall in 2016, five seasons, 279 games, 82 points across the Rangers and Vegas, and a Stanley Cup.

31 goals and 51 assists, and a minus-15.

He is twenty-five, and the first-round pick is now a fourth-line centre who takes the fifteenth percentile of starts.

That is not a failure — two hundred and seventy-nine NHL games and a Cup ring is more than most late first-rounders get. It is simply a much smaller player than the draft position promised, and the 22nd-percentile chance share says the club knows it.